What is your "inexpensive" hobby that turned out to be expensive/ you gradually invested lots of money into?
Edit: so it turns out that every hobby can be expensive if you do it long enough.
Also I love how you talk about your hobby as some addicts.
Electronics / microcontrollers.
Took just a few months to go from, "I can make a wifi connected weather station for like $20 in components!?" to "oscilloscopes cost how much?"
Has there already grown a noteworthy Arduino/ESP Community on Lemmy?
There are quite a few but none are super active.
I would love to read about this $20 weather station! Do you maybe have a link?
Mine is pretty basic but is built on the shoulders of giants. Also that $20 was from pre-pandemic / pre-chip shortage prices. I’m guessing it’s more like $35 now, or maybe high $20s from ali express.
I use Home Assistant for home automation. It has a now official addon called ESPHome for easily configuring esp devices and adding them to Home Assistant.
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I bought some cheap dev boards off amazon and thankfully they worked
an esp8266 microcontroller with IC2 headers and a microusb port already onboard
a bmp280 that measures temp, humidity, and barometric pressure
a lux sensor with a plastic dome over the top
I soldered them together on a prototyping board
All the components were supported by esphome, so I just needed to write the device config and then flash the devboard via esphome (in a web browser) over the built in usb.
I 3d printed a housing for it, but you can also buy boxes. It needs airflow but also needs to stay dry. You can use a spray sealant to help avoid corrosion from ambient humidity. I skipped that step because I want to see how quickly it becomes problematic… and I should probably check on that.
You can get a cheap oscilloscope that uses USB and your computer. https://www.sainsmart.com/products/sainsmart-dds-140-40m-200m-s-virtual-oscilloscope-logic-analyzer
Not that I have an electronics problem
yeah I got a fancy lab power supply but stopped at oscilloscopes, those things are expensive.
it's still cheap and fun to do a lot of stuff, but now I wanna build a sound-card based oscilloscope.
I haven't bought an oscilloscope yet either, but I keep window shopping.
Good soldering gear already makes me wince. I couldn't imagine paying $500+ for an oscilloscope.
Fortunately I'm more interested in the software side of things... thank God nobody charges for programming toolchains anymore.
Can you recommend any good soldering gear for an intermediate level? I've done plenty of soldering over the years but have always used crappy low end products. It's always been a struggle to properly do a clean-true solder (not just heating the solder like I see everywhere) even though I try to meticulously maintain my equipment. I'm hoping that it's just the equipment I use and a higher end one will make things a breeze like I see the professional's use.
It's really a pain in my ass. On top of maintaining the equipment I have whole setups I've constructed to hold wires and equipment snugly so I can properly apply heat. I purchased a high temp kit but it's cheap as well and still sometimes run into the same problem, with the smaller components and projects though I'm afraid to use it and overheat something that can't handle it.
Same. I'm lucky for software to be my hobby/career. It's practically free. Contrary to popular misconception, it doesn't require any kind of special or more powerful hardware (for most dev, at least). Maybe $150 for a second monitor, for sanity, but that's not actually necessary.
...I mean, I do have good hardware too, but that's for my gaming hobby, not my software hobby.
Lol I feel ya. I ended up making and selling electronics kits to fund the hobby somewhat.
I have been using cheap vintage oscilloscopes the whole time.
Not sure what they go for now but $100 for a 20MHz scope and $200 for a 100MHz was what it was several years ago. Cheapest I got off a buddy for $40. I am still using that one.
Sometimes I fix broken ones and sell them. One time I got one that they thought was broken but turned out it was just the basic settings. I like trying different ones so I have gone through a dozen or so by now.
Now* that I think about it, o-scopes are a whole other hobby lol.
Anyway. Yeah by the time you get the test gear and enough sensors and microcontrollers and whatever it adds up.
Right now I'm working on a power supply design for a 50W class D stereo. Found out big toroidal transformers are not cheap. Oof. And enclosures big enough (especially if labeled "amplifier" or "stereo") are ridiculously spendy.
Erk. I got into this. What’s the tipping point that gets you eyeing oscilloscopes? I’m at the fiddly smd stage.
My next step is custom boards and smds, and an oscilloscope seems like a good way to diagnose when reflow goes wrong. I already have had some fights with I2C using dev boards. But really I'm eyeing one because I have allusions about doing fine calibration on analog sensors.
I should add that I've been talking myself out of an oscilloscope for 2+ years now. I don't REALLY need one.
Self-hosting apps / homelab
Getting used enterprise gear is not prohibitively expensive, but the electric bills balloon very quickly.
I currently bought an old desktop from a friend that I use as my Homeserver.
Wow I thought it was way more.
One time costs: ~500€ Monthly costs: ~15€ Plus electricity, but I have solar. I assume it's about 150€/year
But I'm a cheap selfhosted, but eventually, I will have a huge ass Enterprise Level Rack in my basement.
I'm glad I quickly stopped "homelab" after my old laptop that I used as a server in a cupboard died. Switched to a rented root server for all my selfhosting needs since.
Yep. Half height rack, a couple servers, UPS, switch, etc.
And I still keep looking at used gear. Being in Silicon Valley there is always a deal to be had.
How much do you pay for electricity and how much for internet and what speeds?
Knitting. Super cheap to start, you can pick up a set of needles and some acrylic yarn for under $20. But when you start getting into nice yarns and bigger pieces, you are spending hundreds of dollars on yarn alone for a blanket or a sweater. And you want nice needles in all sizes as well as all types (double pointed, regular and circular)… more hundreds of dollars.
Moral of the story is if a friend knits you something with nice yarn, please appreciate it. Lots of effort and thought went into it.
Knitting is expensive for me because I love to start projects but I'm not great at finishing them. Good quality yarn really isn't cheap.
Weaving in the ends is the devil. I hate finishing, but I really enjoy starting 😭
I really, really love knitting. I'm not good, and I have a hard time finishing projects (tragic case of batterscain. I jump from thing to thing.), but the actual knitting itself? OMG, I love having something to do with my hands, and that something actual makes a real, tangible thing? Somehow magically out of a ball of string? What‽ It's lovely.
It's insane, though, how people who don't knit/crochet will just treat a knitted or crocheted item like it's a cheap Walmart graphic tee. They do not respect the work put into it.
Yeah. I knitted gorgeous socks and scarves in hand-dyed merino for some good friends. Come Christmas they obviously thought, oh MrsDoyle likes knitting, let's get her something knitting related! A selection of the cheapest, nastiest acrylic in hideous colours and some needles. Oooooh. Thank you so much.
Just started crocheting, and I'm just holding myself back from buying all the yarn, it's gonna get bad
Oh yes. Yes. I went to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival a few years back. I live nearby, but met people there who'd come from all over - Europe, Japan, the US. All three days sold out. The yarns were so beautiful! And oh so expensive. But you were there in person, fan-girling with you favourite dyers and pattern designers! Spend spend spend. The nearest cash machine ran dry. Such an expensive hobby. But I can't stop.
I’ve found my people… as I cry into this shawl project on my lap, of merino fingering yarn I paid to have imported because “you want to support small yarn producers” telling myself, “it’s not soft enough. Just throw it away and buy that cashmere/silk blend that you know feels like butter.” 🫠
Coffee.
I blame James Hoffman entirely.
Within a year I went from:
Drinking instant coffee at home, but really enjoying "proper coffee"
To
Buying a cafetiere (~£15) + preground coffee
To
Buying a Nespresso (~£60 on offer) + pods
To
Buying a budget espresso machine (~£120) + preground coffee
To
Wasting my money on a cheap manual coffee grinder (~£50) + beans
To
Immediately replacing it with an entry level Sage grinder (~£170)
To
Buying an entry Level "proper" espresso machine (~£700)
It took me a good 2-3 weeks of practicing and dialling in before pulling a good shot of coffee that I'd actually want to drink, but by that point it was also about learning a new skill, learning how different aspects of the process affect the end result and learning how to make all sorts of different espresso-based drinks.
My girlfriend thought I was nuts at first, but a year or so later even she agrees it was worth the investment. I still for the life of me can't get the hang of latte art though.
The problem is now though that I'm a waaaay more critical of coffee from coffee shops, because I spent a long time making bad coffee whilst learning!
What's your " proper" espresso machine?
Not op, but ours is a Lelit Elizabeth dual boiler. Not cheap but I expect it to last like our Gaggia Espresso Deluxe did, about 15 years. I could've gotten away with a single boiler, truth be told but the ability to preinfuse (in a somewhat proper way) depends on it. Non negotiable was the PID temp control. Timed shots is nice to have.
But really I could've spent more on the grinder and less on the machine. The grinder I first got wasn't up to the task of espresso. Didn't have the range of settings and the grind quality was subpar. Had to get one a year later (grr) and settled on the Eureka Mignon Silencio. The flavor profile is so much clearer (this was obvious from the first shot I made with it) due to grind quality and it has stepless adjustment. So I can dial in the shot pretty well. Timed grind is nice too.
But damn what a lot of money for all this. Still worth it. It's not much over 10-15 y. And it pays for itself quickly. I can have an espresso drink every day that is far better than many places offer and it costs significantly less even for the super expensive, fancy beans.
I have an ECM Classika. Though when I get a house I want to replace it with a Decent :x
Sage Barista Pro. Definitely an entry level machine, but I'm very happy with it... I'm not invested enough to go for a dual boiler or higher end machine quite yet - They start to get very big and very expensive very quickly, and I have limited space.
I can't believe I answered "board games" to this before. Yes, espresso wins it over. I just got an espresso machine for my 10th anniversary (price too high for me to be willing to admit). And here I have a wishlist of $500+ in "devices" for it.
Like you, I'm about 3 weeks in and just now getting my burr grind just right for that perfect 26s shot. Luckily my vendor was giving out a free badass scale. It keeps telling me how bad my shot is.
I still for the life of me can’t get the hang of latte art though.
Ditto. I just got my first "correct emulsified foam" today. Usually I end up with hot milk with hot whipped milk on top.
It took me a good 2-3 weeks of practicing and dialling in before pulling a good shot of coffee that I’d actually want to drink,
Could you elaborate? I'm a chef so I've helped myself to a fair few coffees from the big espresso machines and I've found it easy every time, and the coffee very potable indeed. Just haven't got the hang of foaming milk yet.
This is why I appreciate my "tea hobby". For minimal investment, you can get a lot of bang out of your buck, and it doesn't need to go as hog-wild as fancy coffee or wine or beer.
Dry loose leaf tea is just relatively cheap to be snobby over, compared to coffee and other things.
Get an electric kettle for $40-70, a $20 teapot...and you won't spend more than $100-$200 year for some tea (if you drink a LOT of it) that is head and shoulders better than ANYTHING in the grocery store.
Like, you can have a giant improvement in the quality of your tea for not too much.
You CAN go hog-wild and spend lots and lots...there are fancy expensive teas to be had...but even if you don't it's still way better than grocery store teabags.
Before diving into this hobby I was worried that I might not be able to tolerate the type of coffee that happens to be available to me at some random gas station or cafe along the way. That hasn’t been a problem for me yet, but how about you?
Having spent some time experimenting with my AeroPress, I have learned to notice some basic flavors and notes, but I wouldn’t call myself a experienced coffee taster yet. I can tell the difference between light and dark roast. Trying to tell the difference between two expensive coffees is usually very difficult for me, so I guess gettin an espresso machine might not be worth it yet.
Mechanical keyboards. The next one is my endgame, I swear. Just one more groupbuy for those keycaps. It never truly ends.
That'll only happen if you build your own boards and stuff. Not like me! I just got a simple Moonlander with some custom keycaps, dampeners, and red switches rather than my initial brown. After that, I realised that the Kinesis Advantage 360 is the way to go, so I'm fully settled now, not like everyone else ............ right?
I’ve had the Advantage360 for 6 months or so and it’s life changing when typing for 10 hours a day. Haven’t gotten around to relearning on Dvorak or Colmak layout as I learnt qwerty on the 360 first.
And then it turns out some horrendously ugly piece of plastic (like the Kinesis Advantage 360) is better for actually using.
My first "good" keyboard is my current one, which is a Ducky One 2 Mini with MX Cherry Browns I bought really cheap 2nd hand. It has been almost 2 years I've been using it and I recently got a coiled cable for it. I was cleaning it the last time and I started to wonder how hard it would be if I wanted to change my switches and fell into a hole where now I want to desolder everything and install sockets. My spouse got lubs for his stabilizers (he has a Filco Majestouch 2 Ninja with MX Cherry Blues) after watching a few videos... We just started diving into this deeper and deeper after using keyboards from the time cherry still had the patent up for so long. Yeah, we are screwed.
One IBM Model M that I got for free and I'm set for life.
Ditto on that. Thought I was content with my first ergo but one thing after another led to an artisan keyboard with CNC backplates and plates, 2 year long group buys, and artisans to match the whole theme that costs the same as the keyboard. At this point I'm so far in the hole that my artisan keycap collection cost more than my keyboard collection.
It's just another one of those hobbies that has many moving parts so you can optimize and personalize each part.
thats what I thought when I built my quefrency, then rev 5 came out, then now rev 6 is coming out, now I have my first proto* one I built lying around, and I have a rev 4 at home and a rev 5 at the office for work, need to figure out how Im going to get that rev 6, each one I build better than the last even though I thought my second one was going to be my end game haha
mechanical keyboards go two ways, you start shelling out for way overpriced cncd metal or wacky boards or you become a pcb designer and make a board that could be used for camping
I never got the appeal of mechanical keyboards. If you actually have to type all day, a proper flat keyboard like in the old MacBooks ('09-ish) is way nicer and costs much less.
That's extremely subjective. I definitely don't feel like flat keyboards are nicer. These days I use a split keyboard with an angle and I will never go back.
Your experience is not universal. I type all day and if a client/employer gave me one of those flat keyboards I would quickly quit and go dig ditches instead.
If you actually have to type all day, you get into ergonomic mechanical keyboards 😎
I have a laptop (HP Elitebook G6) as a workstation at work which I use to type reports on site and a varmilo with linear switches in the office.
At home I have a GMMK Pro with Kailh Box white switches.
I can type on my laptop but I still prefer my GMMK pro over it thrice and I enjoy my varmilo in the office because of the numpad. Else I'd bring my GMMK pro there (with quieter switches).
In the end: This hobby is very personal and one may like linear while another likes clicky and in the end both spend 500€ on hardware but all do one thing: They enjoy what they type on :)
Growing cannabis (legal here in Canada)
…anyone can grow weed. Growing GOOD weed is an art.
I unintentionally grow weed because I made some tincture for grandma.
Now it just grows on my garden and I can't get rid of it.
In Germany we will be allowed to grow some for private use come next year. I have no idea what to get yet, but I will just plant it in a planter in the garden and hope that it works I guess :D
I hope you’ll be able to get seeds and strains imported from the US and Canada. I smoked weed in Germany while I was living there in 2015 a few times and it was the worst weed I’ve ever smoked. It tasted weird, smelled bad, and didn’t even get me high. When I asked someone about it they were just like “weed isn’t as strong here as it is in the U.S.”
2000 into my fully automated hydroponic weed factory. Another 500 to make my nutrient solutions from scratch. Mind you that 500 dollars when making from scratch likely last 20 years of crops. It does make a good 1.5 pounds of dry weed every 3 to 4 months with the for legal plants allowed in Canada. I barely smoke so give nearly all away.
Three year prior, harvested a crop down right before going to Mexico for three month trip. Was still some shoots barely growing so for shits and giggles I turn the lights back to 22 hours per day to see if they would go back to the veg state. Have camera so can watch it remotely. Shit starts fully growing like a new plant. Anyhow COVID puts a wrinkle in my return. Ended up in Mexico for 18 months. Over that time, thing kept growing like nuts. Automation on water replacement and nutrient injection along with pH monitoring. Became sort of a how long can this thing go with near zero human intervention. Had only to send my brother in law in three times to cut it down and refill my nutrient injectors from solutions I made before leaving.
Right? When you grow, you really get an appreciation for what an amazing, and resilient plant it is.
I used to grow, but never smoked except to taste my harvest. My spouse smoked daily and heavily. I didn’t, but I LOVED coming home from work to my grow room. It was so therapeutic! Still is, but I miss my old HPS & MH lights.
Running.
Was supposed to be the cheapest way to get exercise. You can do it right from your front door, no gym subscriptions, no specialized equipment (some people will tell you you don't even need shoes), and it's far and away the best time-value exercise I've ever found. You can get away with like 20 minutes 3-4 times a week and be doing great.
Well, turns out I love running and I love distance running so I'm now putting up enough miles to need new shoes 2-3 times a year, a nice Garmin smart watch and heart rate monitor to track my progress, sign-ups for several long-distance races each year, shorts, socks, you get the picture.
Could I do it cheaper? Yeah. But at the end of the day it's a hobby and I like it
For me it is maybe camping.
I just tested my new sleeping bag - under 0.5kg rated to -5°C. And realised that I bought/ replaced lots of gear to higher quality gear over few years.
Camp stoves and fuel! I can buy a lot of bic lighters and cheap metal camping mugs for the cost of a dang Jetboil stove and fuel.
I love my pocket rocket, nothing like getting up early in the morning and boiling some water super quick for some coffee, then heat some more water for some quick oatmeal and sit in my chair and just decompress
When I can I just make fire. I have some camping stove, really cheap one, but I use it maybe 2 times per year.
The cheap one I have is for ethanol/ urotropin tablets.
Ok now you have to share. A decent bag at a half kilo?
It is some feather filled bag (300g). But it is not durable, the fabric that holds it is really thin.
I just picked what my older brother got (but with more filling).
At 5°C it is still in the boxers range inside. The e-shop I bought it from had some details about the sleeping bags like quality of feathers and filling quantity. This one had 900 in quality and 300g of filling.
trying to get a motocamping setup going. Spent over $200 at REI last weekend just for a tarp shelter and accoutrements and I still have 75% of the list to go which is only NECESSARY items…
Oh my! I spent so much on camping! I get so excited by all the gadgets that people come up with.
Coffee. I'm in a coffee producing country. It could be as cheap as grabbing a bag from the coffee institute (really good and cheap), a cloth filter and call it a day. Instead, I'm on my second espresso machine, fourth grinder, second portafilter set, and have all the doodads to make it just how I like it.
Fountain pens - I started with a 30 euro Parker but it seems like just one is never enough.
Truth. I started with some disposable Pilot Varsity fountain pens because someone I worked with was forging my signature on paperwork. I haven't worked there for 12 years, and now I have a collection of different fountain pens and ink.
Started with a $50 aluminum Lamy, now I have a brass Kaweco that was about $220. I have a shelf full of inks now.
Help me….
This. At first you're like "oh geez, $20 for a pen?" Then it's "oh, I absolutely need to spend $400 for a custom handmade Edison or (insert your favorite brand)" sure it writes a little better than the $20 pen, but holy schnikes does it look and feel so much better.
One is never enough. I mean, you gotta have one for each ink, right? RIGHT??
There are so many options to try to see what you like. Plus, the fountain pen community is honestly one of the best. Dangerous for the wallet...
Yeah. I had to start pinching myself when I began to look at a $400 pen as a “bargain”. Still love my fountain pens, though.
Scrolled down for this, hi all!
Oh shit that’s like 3 hobbies in this one thread. I stopped at a (very) decent Lamy 2000 and Iroshizuku inks.
Reading. Bear with me…you start by getting a cheap physical or digital copy of the book. Then you fall in love with the book/author. Then you have to buy all the books by that author…but not the cheap editions…the fancy editions! You need to display these babies! And oh! They sell cool collectors items that would be perfect for the book shelf! Rinse and repeat for so…so many books. Sigh.
3d printing. I started out with a cheapish Chinese model, got annoyed by the lack of accuracy and bought a Prusa.
Then there’s the filaments, accessories, post processing stuff... I own a Dremel now for some reason!
And I’m constantly eyeing those resin 3d printers, telling myself the higher resolution is totally worth it…
The only thing saving my bank account is my low attention span and dozens of other interests :)
I feel you, started with a cheap 200$ ender 3…. I now have two ender 3’s, an ideaformer belt printer, a bambu p1s, and. Tronxy 400 I’m converting into a Frankenstein printer. Oh and an anycubic mono x resin printer and a laser cutter.
Yea, 6 printers and a freaking laser cutter/engraver. All because I thought it would be fun to tinker with 3D printing
It can also save money. I love just printing things I need rather than buying them! Even if I have to do some test fits, I can easily beat off-the-shelf prices with some meters of PLA.
Happy with my Prussia mini, but starting to feel the post-processing itch.
So I'm just gonna quickly add in on the resin printers.
Even a dirt cheap used anycubic model from years ago is going to be much more impressive and fantastic resolution than a standard FDM printer.
But the build plate is really small and the resin is super toxic. You will need to get something to wash the prints in and a constant supply of high proof alcohol that if you want to save money you need tools to filter as well. Then you should get UV lights for curing or you will have to wait days to harden naturally.
It's not nearly as expensive as you would think if you buy used and fanagle parts and pieces of stuff from weird sources but it's smelly, messy and more of a pain unless you really need super clean but small parts or minis.
I know I know I know...
Every time I feel the temptation, I think about the mess and chemicals and rubber gloves (that last one always does it for me somehow).
I don't have the space for it, nor the ventilation. It's just.. I like to design stuff and print it. And whenever my printer can't match my design, I get annoyed and blame it on my tools. Even though I know I should adjust my design instead.
Sorry, I'm ranting..
3D printing turned into building printers. Im 2 Vorons deep, and the annex k3 is starting to look interesting. Machine in general. I know I have no Real use for a co2 laser, but damn does it look interesting.
So I gues building machines.
Lol same here.
Bought a cheap printer and it worked, but I couldn't fix it.
Then I got another cheap printer that was bigger, but it was a fire hazard
Then I got a not as cheap printer, then it broke in the stupidest way possible
So I got a the Popular Cheap Printer, and it was good enough
But I needed a Prusa since I was now selling my parts, and it was good
Then I got a bigger prusa since the popular printer turned into a sunk cost fallacy.
What should've been a one time cost of $350 turned into multiple $350-500 printers until I started a business with it and spent $1000 to stop messing with it
Bicycling for me. Started off with a cheap old bike that I tried keeping in as goid condition as possible without spending too much on it. Problem with old bikes is wear and tear so things break and new old parts are hard to cheaply. So it became a hackjob. Then got me a new one and realised riding on roads only got boring so I started experimenting with gravel and singletrack.
Guess what? Time for a new bike. And a more expensive one. Carbon. And to maintain it I needed more tools. Also new tubes as the spare ones I had didn't fit that big of tyres. Also moved to a new place and now I got a MTB arena within a few km from home. So of course I had to get me one of those. And to maintain the suspension I needed new stuff, oils and tools.
Clothing. Bags. Events. It becomes a lot after a while.
Also planning for bike nr4, a steel fatbike. Promised myself not to buy anything this year, but the year is soon over...
Did I mention bikepacking? Yeah that is another big black hole of expenses. But a fair bit of overlap with backpacking so costs are split.
I have autism and ADHD, so all of them:
That's only my 30's which is the last 4 years. Hobbies for me are normally short and fierce obsessions when I start, they eventually slow down into a more 'normal' pasttime that I do sometimes to past the time.
Motorcycle riding, done the right way.
Bought a decent street bike to start on, learn the ropes for several years, had the occasional mishhap or two which I fixed by myself. Still, cost money to fix things right?
Upgraded to a proper sport bike and realized how much fun it is, also with a new level of danger involved. Still, I wasn't an idiot into things right. Bought 100% proper gear, including a track suit, good helmet, gloves, etc. as any motorcyclist knows, you'll eventually drop your bike, which I did. Again, fixing it yourself is certainly an option, but also again, it cost money.
Then, I made the mistake of going to my first track day. They will allow you to use your own motorcycle as long as you prep it correctly and have decent tires and safety gear. This was an absolute game changer, and I was hooked harder than a heroin addict with an unlimited bank account. Unfortunately, I am neither of those two categories, and track days only get more expensive the deeper you get into them. First of all, they are not cheap to begin with. A decent track day will set you back 300 to $500 just to get on the track. Then, to really get the most out of it, you should have true racing tires with tire warmers. Then there's the matter of getting your bike to the track, race fuel, a place to hang out, etc etc etc. The list goes on and on.
Photography.
I started to really get into it back in 2015 with a Sony A6000 and a kit lens. Then you buy more, higher quality lenses. Then you buy better camera bodies with full frame sensor, then lenses that are full frame compatible. Then the various odds and end accessories. Then trips around the world to take pictures of things.
I have taken a break from photography recently, on account that having a kid doesn't allow me a lot of opportunity to edit my photos anymore. They say the best camera you have is the one that is on you. That has proven to be true while I try to be as present as possible around my daughter. I can quickly take out my phone, capture the moment and it will take care of most of the post processing edits that I can share with family later.
Farming - family has been doing it for ~5 generations. I'd say we have put in about $10 M dollars over time (adjusted for inflation).
What's that dear? It's a way of life/occupation . . . are you sure? Seems like it must be a hobby given the return we've made on it over the years. Well, if you're sure.
My wife said that farming is technically an occupation and not a hobby. I still have my doubts given how much we have thrown away on it over the years, but I don't like to disagree with her (she's usually right).
Watercolor.
Children play with $5 palettes. Apparently I pay $20 for a single color tube.
Tabletop RPG. I started in High school, you need only paper a pen and a set of dice, right ? All the rules can be found online anyway, right ?
But it's so much better to have the physical books. And you need more than one dice of each obviously. And this nice metal dice looks very good. I obviously need different set of dice with colors pattern that match my different characters.
Speaking of characters, I need mini. I could get the cheap basic one of course, but the lead ones looks sooo much better.
And I obviously need custom models for all my characters.
Several years later, with a disposable income and I added maps, tokens, terrains, cards, ect. Even a tablet that I use only for this. I'm now limited by the storage place available in my flat (maybe for my own good).
Playing music. Started on a shitty hand-me-down acoustic guitar. Got a better guitar. Got an electric. Got a better amp. Got a couple of pedals. Got a better amp. Got like 6 more amps, some cabs, 5 more guitars, a huge pedalboard, a cello, a keyboard, an audio interface, attenuators, mics, etc etc.
You gotta understand... I need all this stuff. There are subtle differences that you've never noticed before but will probably hear once I do an a/b comparison for you, and I absolutely must get an AC15 next to round out the collection instead of buckling down and recording something.
Mechanical pencils. You can go from $6 Kuru Toga Advances to $60 rOtring 800s to $100+ imported Japan region exclusive Kuru Toga Dives
Flight simming. Started out with a cheap joystick. Now I have an expensive one, throttle quadrants, rudder pedals, a vr headset and I've built myself a button box and a flight seat. And I'm now I want a helicopter collective. Oh well..
lol at some point is is cheaper to take flying lessons?
At $250+/hr for flight lessons, no.
On the contrary, it's probably cheaper to build your own sim today than waste xx flying lessons on procedures you can learn in a sim.
And you didn’t even get into the software.
Aircraft, scenery, support software like Navigraph, it all adds up. Fortunately aircraft and scenery are “buy it for life” and anyone who tries otherwise is liable to have rocks thrown at them.
VATSIM is free however, and that’s part of why it’s so great.
Houseplants.
It started with a little green in the living room and suddenly turned into a full grown, humid, highly poisonous indoor jungle that’s thirsty as fuck. And it turns out that exotic plants, fancy pots, growing lights, different types of soil for different species, fertilizers, and dozens of liters of water every day are somehow expensive…
Edit: yes, I love it
I am probably too late to this... But here goes.
Every damn time I get into something, I over do it.
I spent $13k on my kitchen stove, this one keeps giving, but that is $13,000.00 USD! Just for my kitchen stove. My range hood because it is required with my high output stove was $3k, and then let's talk makeup air to replace what is taken out by it.
Or what about woodworking? Yep, I wanted to do it, and still do. I have a half completed work bench, and some basic tools... That will be about $2k...
Let's buy a boat! Yep 29 years old, runs great... Break out another thousand...
But most recently, Plex... You know, let's get rid of subscriptions... Yeah, this year alone I have put $900 or so into that. Yep I sure saved money on canceling Netflix!
Solving the Rubik's cube
You either get into speedcubing and get high end cubes to improve your performance, at least of the official categories and a couple must haves like the Mirror cube.
And / Or
You start collecting cubes and puzzles of all kinds and shapes (yes, even non-cubical :o). You start to acquire custom cubes built by hand by artesians or niche brands.
For the love of what's good in this world, stick to that one budget MJC set of competitive cubes until you are actually 10 or 20 seconds behind the world record
Magic the Gathering..
Few years ago we found few old decks in our summer camp shared game box.
Someone looked at them said something like I think we could sell them for few hundred bucks and then put the rubber band on and tossed them back.
I started playing MTG when ice age came out. Sold all my cards back in 2018 for $13k. Most of that was from having all the dual lands and fetch lands. Also had an original foil tarmagoyf
Who ever told you it would be inexpensive?? LOL
In defense of the ~8 year old me, who had no clue how to play the game and just liked looking at the fancy cards, no one told me anything :) Also, that was around the time Urza's Saga released so it really was wayyy less expensive at that time.
Man, if I knew then what I know now..
Arduino and hobby electronics. It started out as a continuous loop pad dye machine to save me having to dye fabric by hand, strictly mechanical, but then I wanted to automate adding the chemicals at the right times. Then it was keeping the dye liquor a consistent temperature. Then it was draining the trough automatically. Then I figured out I could design my own PCBs and have them fabricated. It just keeps going...
When I first got into VRChat to hang out with some friends, I thought maybe I could survive just playing on desktop for free. Now, a couple thousand dollars later, I own a Valve Index, extra base stations and 4 trackers for full-body tracking.
House plants. Sure a few mass-market plants are dirt cheap, but soon you get into unusual plants, plants with special needs, hundreds/thousands of plants, grow lights, grow racks, terrariums, automated watering systems…
Music production. You start with pirated FL Studio and sone freeware plugins and the next thing you know is you're planing your hone studio with room treatment, expensive monitors, an expensive interface, aonther evrn more expensive interface, that one vintage compressor you absolutely need, a tape machine, and then you want I synthesizer, just a small, versaitle one, and next thing you know is you're buying the second euro rack for your mod synth because there wasn't enough space in the first one, because you need that one filter, and since you got lots of free slots now, why not buy some more fx. Fx can't hurt, right? And maybe one oscillator, you always wanted a fifth one...
Espresso.
It started with a second hand cheap machine from my grandmother as a gift for Christmas.
Then I bought a delonghi grinder for £50 and a used delonghi dedica for £60.
Then I upgraded the grinder to a baratza sette for £300.
Then I upgraded the espresso machine to a Lelit Bianca for £2000
Then I bought an EG-1 grinder for £3000
Now I'm looking to upgrade my machine soon.
Also I bought acaia scales and a puqpress and various coffee related things along the way, as well as spending essentially £10 a week on beans
Playing racing games on PC.
At first, it's just a few racing games with an Xbox controller.
Then it get more complicated with the more advanced racing sim/arcade and the controller isn't enough anymore.
Then come a simple wheel and pedals set.
But now the games is way more enjoyable, then up the difficulty.
Now I need gear shifter, hand brake, better monitor, better PC.
Then not long until I need a full racing cockpit to mount everything on.
And now, after all that is just the beginning.